


untitled

by amaelamin



Series: hyuken tumblr prompts [2]
Category: VIXX
Genre: M/M, Protectiveness, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 15:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7646857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaelamin/pseuds/amaelamin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>war!au</p>
            </blockquote>





	untitled

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on AFF on 3 may 2016.

“Again.”

Sanghyuk steps  away from the pile of hurt that was Jaehwan gulping in air on his knees and waits, the twin of the staff in his hands lying forlornly some metres away. Jaehwan pushes himself up and goes to retrieve it from where Sanghyuk had knocked it out of his hands, disarming him and sweeping his feet from under him in two efficiently brutal moves. Jaehwan knows Sanghyuk isn’t trying to hurt him, but he’s going to be wearing the bruises from today’s sparring above the others not yet faded into green and yellow.

“You need to try harder to hang on to your weapon. You give it up too easily.”

Jaehwan tacks on a silent ‘hyung’ at the end of each sentence, wondering what Sanghyuk would say if he knew Jaehwan was older than him. Jaehwan hasn’t said much, hasn’t told anyone anything consistent about himself since he washed up here a month ago – Jaehwan wonders how shocked Sanghyuk would be if he knew what Jaehwan was like – used to be like. _There’s war coming_ slams into his consciousness uninvited like it always does, the phrase uttered quietly in corners and stridently in more open spaces where it feels less dangerous to say the words, the thing that had made Jaehwan pack up and run and didn’t let him stop until now, until here, until Sanghyuk. The thought occurs to him that Sanghyuk isn’t really like this either – taciturn for the most part, businesslike. Jaehwan tries to remember what he had been like at twenty-one, three years before everything he knew had started crumbling, and came up with one thing – loud. He’d been loud.

He cannot imagine being anything but quiet now, guarding his words and the boundaries of his self because carefree noise and recklessness doesn’t belong in the life he and everyone else is living now.

He doesn’t mean to cry out when Sanghyuk’s staff cracks him sharply across his shoulder blades, and the sound startles them both for a moment. Sanghyuk moves forward a half-step and has his hands on Jaehwan before he realises what he’s doing, before Jaehwan looks up into Sanghyuk’s face and then cannot look away. Sanghyuk is taller, bigger than him, and the strength in his hands makes Jaehwan feel helpless. Jaehwan remembers needing to be strong, for his family and friends, until that one night when he had nothing left to be strong for – Jaehwan doesn’t think he will ever feel strong again, and he doesn’t want to. He is too aware of Sanghyuk’s hands resting nervously on his shoulders, an outline of flame around each finger and the breadth of his palm, and Jaehwan feels so small and tired of running.

If he gives himself to Sanghyuk, gives in to that dangerous impulse to create connections, create relationships, if he lets Sanghyuk become the reason he might make a mistake in battle, if he becomes Sanghyuk’s reason to make it through every fight alive –

Jaehwan reaches out a trembling hand – he squints at it, willing it to steady – and presses it against Sanghyuk’s chest. He feels the catch of Sanghyuk’s breathing, and wants nothing more but for Sanghyuk to hold him, to let them both indulge for a little while in feeling like normal people, like it is a normal world.

“I will teach you how to fight,” Sanghyuk whispers instead, and Jaehwan searches his face for what he means. “You will live through this.”  

*


End file.
